More reflections on whether transgender women are women

A number of readers wrote in with more links, prompted by the thoughtful essays by philosopher Kathleen Stock (Sussex). Journalism professor and feminist theorist Robert Jensen (UT Austin) shared this recent essay; an excerpt:

In left/liberal circles, especially on college campuses, “trans*” increasingly is where the action is for those concerned with social justice. It offers — for everyone, whether transgender-identified or not — the appearance of serious intellectual work and progressive politics. Endorsing the transgender project is a way to signal one is on the cutting edge, and work like Halberstam’s is embraced in these circles, where support for the transgender movement is required to be truly intersectional.

My challenge to those whose goal is liberation is simple: How does this help us understand the real world we are trying to change? How does it help us understand patriarchy, the system of institutionalized male dominance out of which so much injustice emerges?

And philosopher Dan Kaufman (Missouri State) sends along this piece; an excerpt below the fold:

Contemporary gender-identity activism maintains that beyond our male/female sex identities, we also have a gender identity that is articulated by way of our gender expression and presentation. Often it goes further than this and subordinates our sexual identity to our gender identity or even ignores sexual identity altogether, in favor of gender identity. The terms ‘man’ and ‘woman’, as used in ordinary language, are alleged to denote our gender identifies rather than our sex, which is what makes it possible for activists to claim that people who are chromosomally and phenotypically male are in fact, women, because their gender expression and presentation are those traditionally associated with the female sex and that people who are chromosomally and phenotypically female are, in fact, men, because their gender expression and presentation are those traditionally associated with the male sex.

There is a significant irony involved (surely unintended) in the articulation of gender identity by way of gender expression and presentation, given the relationship these bear to traditionalist gender socio-cultural norms....Remember that the idea behind the classical feminist critique of gender was not just that women shouldn’t be forced into roles and modes of presentation traditionally associated with their sex, but that women should not be identified with those roles; that being a woman should not be defined in terms of dresses and makeup and pink and light blue colors and housework and soap operas; that being a woman is being biologically female and that all the rest – how we dress, what we like, what we do, how we act – should be at the discretion of the individual. And yet, contemporary gender identity theory tells us that a Caitlyn Jenner, despite being chromosomally and phenotypically male, is in fact a woman, because she identifies as one by way of clothes, makeup, hairstyle, and manners of behavior and speech, all of which conform to the gender roles and tropes traditionally associated with the female sex. This is the sense in which gender identity is arguably regressive and reactionary and is the reason why the gender-identity movement has found itself in conflict with certain sectors of the feminist and gay rights activist communities.